APTA Summary of SNF Final Rule Now Available

A summary developed by APTA highlights provisions of the final rule for skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) for fiscal year 2012. This summary outlines the 4 major updates that will affect physical therapy—payment for group therapy, therapy student supervision, payment cuts, and other Medicare-required assessments (OMRAs).
CMS streamlined the group therapy definition as therapy provided simultaneously to 4 patients who are performing similar therapy activities, and CMS will allocate group therapy minutes among those 4 patients to reflect the use of the therapist's time. Within the final rule is also an elimination of the SNF "line-of-sight" supervision requirement for therapy students, 3 significant changes to OMRAs, and an 11.1% payment cut due to a recalibration of the case-mix indexes to account for increases in payment levels that were not anticipated by CMS after the revision of policies regarding RUG-IV.